One of the hardest things we ever do is try to be something more than we ever were. It’s a process I find playing out in my life over and over again…and you probably do, too. We are none of us as we should be, but it is still a tough pill to swallow.
It’s a painful experience. Humbling. It really takes a chip out of me and makes me just stop and say “whoa!” for what seems like forever. It is a question without a lot of answers because, as I am finding, becoming something more than you ever were is not a hungry pursuit. It is rather…a fast.
That is to say, I don’t find myself running toward anything in particular. Instead, I am quietly (though inwardly tumultuously) aware of being something less. I am aware of what I am that I should not be, and the process of changing that is not so much replacing it with something greater as it is simply giving up what should never take hold in my heart. I mentioned that last week with a status update when I said that often we cultivate best what God is growing in us simply by pulling the weeds. I don’t know where God is leading me or exactly what He is trying to call out of me. I have hints and enough to only make me thirstier to see it come to fruition, but He’s not telling me all of the details right now. All I know is that I am falling way short. Over…and over…and over again.
I’m finding it every day as my life, and the way I live it, runs right up against that nagging, gnawing knowing in my heart that this is not how it is meant to be. It is watching my life unfold and knowing there is a deeper, truer, story in my heart but recognizing plainly that it is not being shown anywhere that anyone else could ever see it. It is tucked away in the midst of all of these indescribable little things – a million little things – that God keeps doing in me that wouldn’t mean a hill of beans to anyone but means the world to me.
I’m still talking, telling stories. And they are true stories, but even as I speak words these days, I know that even in truth they are not Truth. There is something bigger going on, and I feel like I betray it every time I try to fill the void with something else. Void is hard. Emptiness is draining. But trying to fill it up with something less than what God has for me in this place is worse. It is dishonoring to Him, degrading to me, and a heavy burden that my heart is crushing under the weight of.
I hate myself for it. If I let it get the better of me, I even curse myself. That only increases the burden. When all feels as it should, with its due weight and worthy of the contemplation, quiet, and even grief…it is still a heavy burden but God takes away the hate. Somehow. He replaces it with stillness and a loss for words that has PLAGUED me for months as I have wrestled around in this. It still does, actually. This? This is just rambling. A heart pouring out because it has nowhere to go being both filled to overflowing and empty all at the same time.
It really is a beautiful place.
But it’s also a place where it’s tempting to be pissed. Yes, I said it. I look around and see so many familiar things and know that I don’t relate to them the same way, but I haven’t figured out how that’s changed yet. I mean, I don’t know what to do with things. Emptiness and wandering. Or lostness. It is not the content of my life that has changed – it is the content of my heart. That’s a tough pole to wrap around when your days are pretty much the same.
It’s easy to think there’s a problem with the world. If it knew what was going on in me, it would change somehow. If it knew the content of my heart, it would be different. It's that wanting to run away and be somewhere different so you can just start over. As it is, I see myself stuck in this place in-between. Where I am not what I used to be, but not sure what I’m going to be and hoping that I can find something to be in the meantime but understanding that the world still expects the same of me. The world wants what it wants, and it interprets everything I do with one eye toward the past. The world runs me ragged trying to convince me to catch up to my past. What a phrase! Catch up…by going back. By returning like a dog to its vomit. That’s no way to live, and I refuse to turn back.
And there are relationships, too. Oh, how I long for the coming day when my relationships change. When I can be seen for what is in me and not what darkened my soul for so long. It is human nature to judge a person’s words by what you know of them, and that is why two people can say exactly the same thing and be taken two different ways. It is why I am watching my words lately; I know they will be held to my past though they come from somewhere foreign to all that.
It’s always been this way. This is nothing new. It is tough to overcome a former reputation. I’ve been in this situation before. I grew up a liar and a manipulator. For good reason, probably, but the closer my heart draws to God, the more I wonder how things would have turned out if there had been more Truth and less fear. That’s neither here nor there at this point. The story is that this is how I was known – by family, by friends, by peers, by teachers, by acquaintances, by professionals. Everyone took what I said with a grain of salt, knowing it might or might not be some version of the truth.
I haven’t been a liar or a manipulator in many years. God has been working hard on the part of my heart that was so wounded by the vulnerability of truth, and He has done wonders. This pissed me off then, too – waiting for the world to see that I was honest, that I could be trusted, that the words out of my mouth were more than a means to an end. It was many, many years in coming and in a few holdouts, still a day to wait for. But lately, I have seen how people’s reactions have finally changed toward me. How I have the credibility and the reputation for honesty that I have been seeking since this change started taking hold.
I’m not pissed anymore; I am humbled.
So I’m waiting on the current situation to humble me because there are a lot of stories out there that have been told through my life for many years that I’m waiting to get out from underneath. In my heart, they have no hold (or perhaps only a little one because it still comes close to pissing me off); but the world still sees them in play. The world wants to still judge by that, wants to keep me running to catch up to my past. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. But it sucks being stuck in the middle and wanting to be so angry with everyone and everything for not seeing this beautiful, dramatic, and yet quieting shift that is going on.
Then, just when it is all about to break and I could either lash out or fall into self-hatred, never expecting better of myself…I find that the fault is in me. The new story, the one taking hold and taking shape in my heart, the one that runs so counter to what I never should have been but too often was, is disappearing under the old story that I continue to tell out of…habit? Intimidation? Both. It is looking at my life and saying, “That’s not what’s in my heart” and in the same breath looking at my heart and saying, “That’s not what’s in my life.”
Habit of course, is hard to break. So is intimidation. And this emptiness is intimidating. It is hard. It is heavy. It requires a strength and courage that I would not have were God not constantly here giving it to me. To shrug my shoulders and say, “I just don’t know” (Yes, ME! Not knowing!) but to have such a clear and heavy, too, understanding in the depth of my heart. To be thirsting and crying out for whatever it is God is calling me to but knowing only what to never turn back to. What to never be again. And grieving that ever it was.
For many years, I have prayed and cried and yearned to figure out what it is that has been missing from life. From my life. God has shown me – it has been authenticity. That is what has changed in me that has set this work in motion. That is what He has called me to and cried out. But it’s nothing I gain by waking up one morning and deciding to be authentic.
It is about pulling weeds. Waiting patiently. Responding to the new story. Embracing the emptiness. Trusting in His plan. Raising a hand in worship. Letting tears fall – both of grief and of joy. Humbling myself. Simply being.
I simply am. Humbled. Broken. On the verge of being pissed. Lost. Wandering. Empty. Quiet. Stilled. Filled to overflowing. Deeply grateful, honored even by it all. Intimidated. Scared. Anxious for what lies ahead. Confident that it’s going to be awesome.
I simply am.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wander in Wonder
The Israelites. God’s chosen people. All they had was His promise, a beautifully crafted promise with the images of milk and honey, expanses of land to call their home, and an unhindered relationship with their Maker.
I wonder if they thought this Promised Land was the beginning of their journey…or the end.
Were they waiting until those first drops of milk and honey touched their tongues to start earnestly worshipping and seeking God in a new way? Did they believe they would find something invigorating in that place that would set in motion a beautiful harmony, a perfect existence that would only draw them closer to their God? Were they standing in Egypt worshipping an empty deity they believed would not be a real and vital part of their lives until Canaan?
Or were they holding on to that promise as their final destination, as that place where everything would just stop and become bliss? Where they would have earned their reward and be placed in honor as God’s people, without another care or worry to haunt the remainder of their days?
Did the Israelites believe they were a people created for Canaan…or that Canaan was created for them?
They were a people who felt lost, a bitter people after awhile. And why shouldn’t they be? Back in Egypt, they knew what life was like. They knew how to worship their God, where to find Him amidst their trouble. They held on to the hope of His promise, of that land flowing with milk and honey. It was a stark contrast to the life they knew, but they could picture it.
Forty years in the desert will change a people. Forty years wandering in the wilderness. Where you swear that you have passed that rock before, probably a dozen times. Where the heat beats down on you day after day until you can’t tell if the sun is rising or setting, or perhaps neither at all. Where beads of sweat pour down your brow and cloud your eyes. Where you don’t know whether you’re coming or going, from where or to where or why. Where God is nothing more than a figment of your imagination because you can hardly hear His promise any more, can hardly imagine a taste of any milk or honey, though there’s plenty of manna and quail to go around. Where you’re so sick of manna and quail that you could puke.
The desert sucks. It is…nowhere. How can you ever hold out hope for a promise of the future when you’re nowhere, stuck in the middle of nothing, and just wandering? Making a nick in the rock every time you pass it to make sure you’re not crazy the next time around, that the hot sun is not playing tricks on your mind.
Yup. It’s the same rock.
We have all been there. Walking in circles, not knowing why. Struggling under the weight of things. Searching for direction. Thinking back to the place we left and longing for its stability. We know in our hearts that it was not what we were created for, that there is nothing back there for us. But we can barely remember the promise we left it all for. We hardly know what it was we thought was out there. We only remember feeling like we had to move, then striking out with purpose only to grow weary and lose it as we pass that same rock, that same bush, that same tree. Watch the same sunset, the same sunrise, the same expanse as nothing seems to change and whatever promise we thought was out there fades into a mirage somewhere between the manna and the quail.
We know the desert. We know the wilderness. We know the wandering.
But were they wandering at all?
Were they not following God, whose constant presence led them in cloud by day and fire by night? Did He not show them the next step, the way to move, how to walk? Did He not feed and care for them?
They were not alone. They were not lost. They simply felt that way. Because they had given up everything they’d known for a promise. That’s all – just a promise. A dream of something better, a deep conviction in their hearts that God would bless them with that milk and honey. They had nothing to go on but His word and that unignorable feeling in their hearts that they were made for something more, that something better awaited them.
They said they were wandering and we believed them. Because we have known that feeling ourselves. But not for a moment were they lost.
They were merely unsettled. A people without a place, but only for a time. A people knowing they could not turn back, knowing that nothing waited in Egypt for them. Nothing valuable, anyway, except perhaps the stability they had come to depend on. The predictability. The routine. Knowing that they heard the faint echoes of the promise, still deep in their hearts, even when they couldn’t remember the exact words or what had been so enticing about it. They were just unsettled – not where they used to be but not yet where they were going. Called, but not fulfilled. Journeying, but not yet arriving.
They felt like they were nowhere, and getting there fast. Or perhaps endlessly dragging out the journey, getting nowhere never.
But they were being led, so they were never wandering. They were simply following, responding as they had been called, going out in pursuit of the promise. Holding onto something unseen. Being hallowed and holied by the journey itself, shaped in the wilderness on the way to Canaan.
Following the Lord by cloud and by fire, forsaking all for the promise – just the promise – of more.
I wonder if they thought this Promised Land was the beginning of their journey…or the end.
Were they waiting until those first drops of milk and honey touched their tongues to start earnestly worshipping and seeking God in a new way? Did they believe they would find something invigorating in that place that would set in motion a beautiful harmony, a perfect existence that would only draw them closer to their God? Were they standing in Egypt worshipping an empty deity they believed would not be a real and vital part of their lives until Canaan?
Or were they holding on to that promise as their final destination, as that place where everything would just stop and become bliss? Where they would have earned their reward and be placed in honor as God’s people, without another care or worry to haunt the remainder of their days?
Did the Israelites believe they were a people created for Canaan…or that Canaan was created for them?
They were a people who felt lost, a bitter people after awhile. And why shouldn’t they be? Back in Egypt, they knew what life was like. They knew how to worship their God, where to find Him amidst their trouble. They held on to the hope of His promise, of that land flowing with milk and honey. It was a stark contrast to the life they knew, but they could picture it.
Forty years in the desert will change a people. Forty years wandering in the wilderness. Where you swear that you have passed that rock before, probably a dozen times. Where the heat beats down on you day after day until you can’t tell if the sun is rising or setting, or perhaps neither at all. Where beads of sweat pour down your brow and cloud your eyes. Where you don’t know whether you’re coming or going, from where or to where or why. Where God is nothing more than a figment of your imagination because you can hardly hear His promise any more, can hardly imagine a taste of any milk or honey, though there’s plenty of manna and quail to go around. Where you’re so sick of manna and quail that you could puke.
The desert sucks. It is…nowhere. How can you ever hold out hope for a promise of the future when you’re nowhere, stuck in the middle of nothing, and just wandering? Making a nick in the rock every time you pass it to make sure you’re not crazy the next time around, that the hot sun is not playing tricks on your mind.
Yup. It’s the same rock.
We have all been there. Walking in circles, not knowing why. Struggling under the weight of things. Searching for direction. Thinking back to the place we left and longing for its stability. We know in our hearts that it was not what we were created for, that there is nothing back there for us. But we can barely remember the promise we left it all for. We hardly know what it was we thought was out there. We only remember feeling like we had to move, then striking out with purpose only to grow weary and lose it as we pass that same rock, that same bush, that same tree. Watch the same sunset, the same sunrise, the same expanse as nothing seems to change and whatever promise we thought was out there fades into a mirage somewhere between the manna and the quail.
We know the desert. We know the wilderness. We know the wandering.
But were they wandering at all?
Were they not following God, whose constant presence led them in cloud by day and fire by night? Did He not show them the next step, the way to move, how to walk? Did He not feed and care for them?
They were not alone. They were not lost. They simply felt that way. Because they had given up everything they’d known for a promise. That’s all – just a promise. A dream of something better, a deep conviction in their hearts that God would bless them with that milk and honey. They had nothing to go on but His word and that unignorable feeling in their hearts that they were made for something more, that something better awaited them.
They said they were wandering and we believed them. Because we have known that feeling ourselves. But not for a moment were they lost.
They were merely unsettled. A people without a place, but only for a time. A people knowing they could not turn back, knowing that nothing waited in Egypt for them. Nothing valuable, anyway, except perhaps the stability they had come to depend on. The predictability. The routine. Knowing that they heard the faint echoes of the promise, still deep in their hearts, even when they couldn’t remember the exact words or what had been so enticing about it. They were just unsettled – not where they used to be but not yet where they were going. Called, but not fulfilled. Journeying, but not yet arriving.
They felt like they were nowhere, and getting there fast. Or perhaps endlessly dragging out the journey, getting nowhere never.
But they were being led, so they were never wandering. They were simply following, responding as they had been called, going out in pursuit of the promise. Holding onto something unseen. Being hallowed and holied by the journey itself, shaped in the wilderness on the way to Canaan.
Following the Lord by cloud and by fire, forsaking all for the promise – just the promise – of more.
Reading the Bible
Nearly two thousand years after the last words were penned, after the ink has dried. Two thousand years after Christ walked this earth as God made Man for our benefit. Two thousand years…and we’re just now starting to feel like we might have this Bible He left us all figured out.
But we are way off. Tragically so.
We have invested a great deal of resources into proving the historical accuracy of His Word, and our discoveries make us feel like we’re closer to proving the existence of a God that no one in our generation has seen. There is a mountain where He told us there was a mountain. Evidence of a great flood. A still-missing ark that we swear we are close to unearthing. We have even found the shroud of cloth, so we say, wrapped around Christ’s face for three days in the grave. From this, we hope to one day know what He looked like.
Looked like here. Once upon a time. Then, we will rejoice and say that the Bible is true, that at least in the historical sense, these events really happened. These stories took place. They are about real people in a real time, and we have the evidence to prove it.
It doesn’t tell us a great deal, if anything, about our God, though. Except perhaps that He’s better than any high school history teacher because He actually got most of us to open the text. We don’t read history to change our lives.
And we have thrown ourselves into the stories of the pages of the Bible, looking for ourselves in this or that parable, this or that account of faithfulness or faithlessness. We have tried to define ourselves by its standards, by the things God has said about the men and women who went before us. We want to be the repentant tax collector, not the Pharisee. We want to give all we have like the poor widow and not just a tenth like the wealthier elite. We want to pray with the heart of David, whose raw honesty with God still touches something inside of us today. We want to walk the streets with Paul, rock the prisons, and refuse to escape. We want to heed the words about the dangers of pride, somehow humbling ourselves and sacrificing all we have for something greater than we could dream of. We want to be bold enough to put our most precious firstborn on the rock of sacrifice, to build an ark when people think we are crazy, to go into the dangerous street corners where people are not looking for God’s word, to bring hope to the hopeless, to watch our words and our drinking and our sexual morality (or lack thereof). Heaven forbid, we gasp, that we could ever love our money or our wealth so much that we couldn’t fit through the eye of a needle – camel or no camel. We see ourselves in these stories, and when our hearts ache, we run to the pages of our Bibles and turn to the places where we know we will see others like us.
Rahab – who stood in the gap between God’s people and His promise. How we long to stand in that gap!
David – naked and prostrate, but beautifully honest. God always seems to answer this man; what is he doing that we cannot grasp?
Isaiah, Elijah, Elisha, a host of other prophets who were bold enough to speak His word, even when it was unpopular.
Job – suffering indescribably yet with that lingering hope that something more must be out there.
Even in the lesser characters, in the more debased, we often find ourselves and see that they, too, had their place in the story of Christ. Perhaps He can redeem even us and put us in His story. History.
It’s not that this is necessarily bad. It shows one dramatic truth that I think we lose even in the present, but through these words, we know it must be eternal: people are basically the same. The fact that at any given moment, no matter the state of our heart, our feelings of worth, our questions or answers – we can find ourselves in these pages.
The problem is…this Bible, this book we look so dearly to for guidance, for instruction on how to live, is NOT ABOUT US.
That strikes a hard blow to a lot of people, and I often find myself included in that. It’s not about us. If it were, it would be a burden too big to bear. We would (and we already are) set ourselves in a cycle of endlessly trying to prove and improve ourselves, to boost our worth, to live right lives according to the stories we find in those pages. It is impossible; these are not the things we can simply do.
For example, and I will only give one though there are many, take the teachings on selflessness and sacrifice. We read those words, and we think, “Yes, Lord! That is so beautiful! To be selfless!” Then we concentrate our efforts on cultivating that absence of self in ourselves, stopping to check every now and then whether or not we’re succeeding. Stopping to think about ourselves to see if we’re thinking about ourselves, even in the hidden parts of ourselves, or if we have truly given up ourselves to be less ourselves…and all of a sudden, all of the questions are about us again. The opposite of selflessness.
This – this Bible – is not about us. This Bible is about God. It is HIS story, and He’s been gracious enough to include us. Because we are half of this relationship. But we are the half of this relationship that we know well, that we know best and most intimately. We know what we are like. In our highs and lows, our darkness and our light, our moments we would boast from the mountaintop and those we’d rather bury in the basement. We know how we are as people.
What the Bible teaches us is WHO GOD IS.
It is His involvement with His people. His plan of redemption. His goal for creation. His love and mercy. His grace. His response to what we already know of ourselves.
When Christ walked the earth, teaching in the cities and followed by hoards of people, some often asked Him about this or that. He did not turn them back to the Scriptures they knew and say, “See how you are kind of like Moses here…or like Job…or like Isaiah?” He wasn’t interested in them finding themselves in the past; what good would that do anybody? Instead, He pointed to the stories – His stories – History – and said, “See how I responded to Moses…or to Job…or to Isaiah? I am STILL a God like that.” It is not that we are copies of the men and women who walked before us.
It is that God is a carbon copy of Himself, perfectly loving and present throughout the stories of all people.
This is why our hearts ache. This is why we never seem to find that which we are thirsting for. And I am guilty of it myself. Opening the Book to read a chapter here, a verse there, or to dive into full study, and winding up either praying for the same answer He gave to a prostitute in a doomed town or else bitter that He doesn’t seem to be giving me just as He gave the prophet on the mountain. I don’t get what they get; that was His gift for them. But for so long, it seems we have been unspokenly taught to read the Bible and find ourselves.
It is better to read it and find God.
To find not the deeds of God, but His character revealed. To pray for His promises instead of the very specific answer He gave someone thousands of years ago. To embrace our relationship with Him, which is the only way to come close to living a right life. We lose ourselves not in trying to lose ourselves, but we lose ourselves in WHO HE IS. We find out about our God, and are encouraged by His people but more by His presence. His absolute, unshakable presence that reveals His promise and fulfills His work in us. Sets us free. Allows us to simply be.
We stop looking for ourselves in His word, and we lighten our burden. We don’t have to hold ourselves down or beat ourselves up because of what we are or are not, because of what He said to someone sorta kinda like us in the remote past.
The one thing we know about the men and women we look to, the ones we identify with in those pages, is that they were simply themselves. They came with no pretense, no comparison of themselves to the past, to someone who lived long ago and they’d never met. They approached their God as they were, individuals with a unique heart but the bold honesty and vulnerability of simply being.
It is that to which God responded – not to Abraham or to Moses or to Job or to Jeremiah or to Paul or to Peter. He responded to man being man, regardless of man’s deeds. He responded to that openness, that thirst, that yearning. That is what the stories of the Bible are meant to show us. That is how we should read it – looking for Him, not for ourselves.
Looking for His presence, His promise, His intervention, His grace, His mercy, His love, His attitude, His posture, His character. Because we are His people, each one of us unique. We will never find anyone, not in all of His stories, just like us.
But if we change our thinking and read in search of Him, we will find Him even now. Because He is STILL a God like that.
But we are way off. Tragically so.
We have invested a great deal of resources into proving the historical accuracy of His Word, and our discoveries make us feel like we’re closer to proving the existence of a God that no one in our generation has seen. There is a mountain where He told us there was a mountain. Evidence of a great flood. A still-missing ark that we swear we are close to unearthing. We have even found the shroud of cloth, so we say, wrapped around Christ’s face for three days in the grave. From this, we hope to one day know what He looked like.
Looked like here. Once upon a time. Then, we will rejoice and say that the Bible is true, that at least in the historical sense, these events really happened. These stories took place. They are about real people in a real time, and we have the evidence to prove it.
It doesn’t tell us a great deal, if anything, about our God, though. Except perhaps that He’s better than any high school history teacher because He actually got most of us to open the text. We don’t read history to change our lives.
And we have thrown ourselves into the stories of the pages of the Bible, looking for ourselves in this or that parable, this or that account of faithfulness or faithlessness. We have tried to define ourselves by its standards, by the things God has said about the men and women who went before us. We want to be the repentant tax collector, not the Pharisee. We want to give all we have like the poor widow and not just a tenth like the wealthier elite. We want to pray with the heart of David, whose raw honesty with God still touches something inside of us today. We want to walk the streets with Paul, rock the prisons, and refuse to escape. We want to heed the words about the dangers of pride, somehow humbling ourselves and sacrificing all we have for something greater than we could dream of. We want to be bold enough to put our most precious firstborn on the rock of sacrifice, to build an ark when people think we are crazy, to go into the dangerous street corners where people are not looking for God’s word, to bring hope to the hopeless, to watch our words and our drinking and our sexual morality (or lack thereof). Heaven forbid, we gasp, that we could ever love our money or our wealth so much that we couldn’t fit through the eye of a needle – camel or no camel. We see ourselves in these stories, and when our hearts ache, we run to the pages of our Bibles and turn to the places where we know we will see others like us.
Rahab – who stood in the gap between God’s people and His promise. How we long to stand in that gap!
David – naked and prostrate, but beautifully honest. God always seems to answer this man; what is he doing that we cannot grasp?
Isaiah, Elijah, Elisha, a host of other prophets who were bold enough to speak His word, even when it was unpopular.
Job – suffering indescribably yet with that lingering hope that something more must be out there.
Even in the lesser characters, in the more debased, we often find ourselves and see that they, too, had their place in the story of Christ. Perhaps He can redeem even us and put us in His story. History.
It’s not that this is necessarily bad. It shows one dramatic truth that I think we lose even in the present, but through these words, we know it must be eternal: people are basically the same. The fact that at any given moment, no matter the state of our heart, our feelings of worth, our questions or answers – we can find ourselves in these pages.
The problem is…this Bible, this book we look so dearly to for guidance, for instruction on how to live, is NOT ABOUT US.
That strikes a hard blow to a lot of people, and I often find myself included in that. It’s not about us. If it were, it would be a burden too big to bear. We would (and we already are) set ourselves in a cycle of endlessly trying to prove and improve ourselves, to boost our worth, to live right lives according to the stories we find in those pages. It is impossible; these are not the things we can simply do.
For example, and I will only give one though there are many, take the teachings on selflessness and sacrifice. We read those words, and we think, “Yes, Lord! That is so beautiful! To be selfless!” Then we concentrate our efforts on cultivating that absence of self in ourselves, stopping to check every now and then whether or not we’re succeeding. Stopping to think about ourselves to see if we’re thinking about ourselves, even in the hidden parts of ourselves, or if we have truly given up ourselves to be less ourselves…and all of a sudden, all of the questions are about us again. The opposite of selflessness.
This – this Bible – is not about us. This Bible is about God. It is HIS story, and He’s been gracious enough to include us. Because we are half of this relationship. But we are the half of this relationship that we know well, that we know best and most intimately. We know what we are like. In our highs and lows, our darkness and our light, our moments we would boast from the mountaintop and those we’d rather bury in the basement. We know how we are as people.
What the Bible teaches us is WHO GOD IS.
It is His involvement with His people. His plan of redemption. His goal for creation. His love and mercy. His grace. His response to what we already know of ourselves.
When Christ walked the earth, teaching in the cities and followed by hoards of people, some often asked Him about this or that. He did not turn them back to the Scriptures they knew and say, “See how you are kind of like Moses here…or like Job…or like Isaiah?” He wasn’t interested in them finding themselves in the past; what good would that do anybody? Instead, He pointed to the stories – His stories – History – and said, “See how I responded to Moses…or to Job…or to Isaiah? I am STILL a God like that.” It is not that we are copies of the men and women who walked before us.
It is that God is a carbon copy of Himself, perfectly loving and present throughout the stories of all people.
This is why our hearts ache. This is why we never seem to find that which we are thirsting for. And I am guilty of it myself. Opening the Book to read a chapter here, a verse there, or to dive into full study, and winding up either praying for the same answer He gave to a prostitute in a doomed town or else bitter that He doesn’t seem to be giving me just as He gave the prophet on the mountain. I don’t get what they get; that was His gift for them. But for so long, it seems we have been unspokenly taught to read the Bible and find ourselves.
It is better to read it and find God.
To find not the deeds of God, but His character revealed. To pray for His promises instead of the very specific answer He gave someone thousands of years ago. To embrace our relationship with Him, which is the only way to come close to living a right life. We lose ourselves not in trying to lose ourselves, but we lose ourselves in WHO HE IS. We find out about our God, and are encouraged by His people but more by His presence. His absolute, unshakable presence that reveals His promise and fulfills His work in us. Sets us free. Allows us to simply be.
We stop looking for ourselves in His word, and we lighten our burden. We don’t have to hold ourselves down or beat ourselves up because of what we are or are not, because of what He said to someone sorta kinda like us in the remote past.
The one thing we know about the men and women we look to, the ones we identify with in those pages, is that they were simply themselves. They came with no pretense, no comparison of themselves to the past, to someone who lived long ago and they’d never met. They approached their God as they were, individuals with a unique heart but the bold honesty and vulnerability of simply being.
It is that to which God responded – not to Abraham or to Moses or to Job or to Jeremiah or to Paul or to Peter. He responded to man being man, regardless of man’s deeds. He responded to that openness, that thirst, that yearning. That is what the stories of the Bible are meant to show us. That is how we should read it – looking for Him, not for ourselves.
Looking for His presence, His promise, His intervention, His grace, His mercy, His love, His attitude, His posture, His character. Because we are His people, each one of us unique. We will never find anyone, not in all of His stories, just like us.
But if we change our thinking and read in search of Him, we will find Him even now. Because He is STILL a God like that.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Parable of the Water
Suppose you have a pitcher of water, nearly full to overflowing, and you pour out all you have into an empty vessel. When you are ready to leave that place, you pour the water back into your ewer to carry with you on your journey. Inevitably, you will not have the same fullness as before. There is always one or two drops that refuse to leave the empty vessel, falling back down and leaving a thin presence around the bottom. This leaves your supply just a few drops short. But suppose then that a gentle rain begins to fall. Won’t your ewer then collect those few extra drops and something more? And won’t those few new drops spread something new through the whole ewer?
Or suppose you take a handful of popcorn and lay it on a plate. Can you pick it all back up again in one grasp? Of course not! If your hand truly was full, not every kernel fits in the same way. Inevitably, you leave a few behind for the scavengers.
So it is with God. When you pour yourself out or lay down your life, you never get fully back what you have given. Not here. But God is doing something greater, using what you could not take with you to start a new plan in motion where you have laid the seed and sending the gentle rain to fill you anew with something fresher, cleaner, and more pure than you’d had.
Or suppose you take a handful of popcorn and lay it on a plate. Can you pick it all back up again in one grasp? Of course not! If your hand truly was full, not every kernel fits in the same way. Inevitably, you leave a few behind for the scavengers.
So it is with God. When you pour yourself out or lay down your life, you never get fully back what you have given. Not here. But God is doing something greater, using what you could not take with you to start a new plan in motion where you have laid the seed and sending the gentle rain to fill you anew with something fresher, cleaner, and more pure than you’d had.
Changes
God truly has changed His servant. Perhaps this is what has made the past couple of weeks so challenging. The whole tone is different, and my heart is in a new place. It is hard to understand the persistent peace and the sense of resolution in my heart. It is new.
I’m a young woman who has fought many battles, most probably unnecessary had I let anything but fear or pain control my heart. But at the time, I knew no other way to live. And so I fought. Life was battle after battle, why me story after why me, this continual sense of victimization and questioning whether I could ever be good enough. Then wondering why no one saw in me what I was seeing in myself, though even I knew it was masked beneath this exterior that had to fight to feel like it was living. There are people, I know, who could easily have looked at the events of the past two weeks and come to one of two conclusions: “This stuff always happens to her” or “She was looking for a way to fail.’
For much of my life, I had been one of those people. Feeling the victimization of this stuff “always” happening, of being targeted. As much as I got beat up in middle and high school, this would be a logical conclusion. Or that I always looked for a way to fail. This, too, was something I knew of myself. This fear of things going smoothly, this excess energy if I didn’t have to fight that sent me searching for a brawl, for something to break and go wrong. I’ll admit that I have held myself back too many times, stopped myself short, expected less of myself then mourned at not having the strength to push through.
Truly, God has changed the heart of His servant.
I don’t feel victimized, don’t feel like life is just a series of horrible, unbelievable events that will inevitably define me. His peace and presence overwhelmed my heart, and it was HIS voice, HIS Truth that echoed loudest. Knowing He had something better for me, that He would fill me to overflowing soon. He promised.
That something better is already here, and it’s beyond words. There is, of course, the change in my heart as I’ve already mentioned. It is knowing that I am not at fault, having no guilt, telling a story in full truth without hiding anything. Those concepts are new for me. I had always considered myself a truthful person, and that is to say that I’m not going to go out of my way to lie nor will I tell a story maliciously or out of spite. But in this story, I finally realized how I had protected my other truths. How I had always had some remnant of guilt – something that made me feel culpable or disgusting or less than worthy, something I always felt I had to hide to protect my image – that prevented me from just laying it out there. In this story, there is none of the above. I accept my role in things, and I know I have not been perfect, but I don’t feel the need to hide even the less-than-glowing parts of myself to protect anything.
I simply am as I am, as He has created me to be. And I am fully ok with that.
A few years ago, this would have been a story that I would have told forever, that I would have recounted and tried to show that I am good and the rest of the world is evil. I would have used it to garner attention or sympathy or support or whatever. I would have played it to the max because I would have felt like I didn’t have any other story to tell. That’s not the case today. In fact, I hardly consider this a story at all and from the first day, I was ready to let it pass. This…is not Truth. This is the world’s fiction, and I can’t let that define me. The pen of the dirty little ratfink who thinks he authors this world doesn’t change one bit of Truth that the Author of my life wrote. This is not my story.
And then there is my reaction and my part in all of this. It will come as no surprise to those of you who know me – and particularly to those who have been on the receiving end – that I can be vicious. I can be mean and spiteful, hateful and rude. Absolutely mean and relentlessly vicious. Even though I have known for a long time that my lion’s roar was more a kitten’s meow, that the beastly anger that burst forth from me in moments of trouble…was not truly a part of me. There was something deeper that should have overridden those outbursts, but I shoved it aside in favor of showing my strength.
Strength that was no strength at all; strength that merely was fear, that fight or flight when I neither wanted to brawl or fall. God has redefined in me over the past several months, slowly but surely, what it means to be strong. He has changed my understanding of strength to mean things I never would have imagined. He has made me strong in ways I never would have defined strength. And what I always considered strength…He has revealed as folly, as fear. Now, I have true strength, but no words to tell you what that is like.
In the past week, I had the opportunity again to be vicious. Perhaps if I had felt that same victimization, had those thoughts that would have made me hate the world or worse, myself, I would have lashed out. If His peace had not been there, if His voice had not been louder than the four berating me, if my heart had closed and refused to listen, if I had chosen the fight over the stillness…things could have gotten very ugly. Let’s be honest – that would have done no good. I could have yelled. Cussed. Put my feet down and stood my ground, refusing to go without an apology and demanding that I keep my job. I knew what they were doing was wrong; I knew they couldn’t get away with it. Yet…I chose something quieter, something more in tune with the truth of my heart. I did not give in to their message. I denied their conclusions. I stated unequivocally that they were wrong. I cried many tears. But that something quieter prevailed.
I played by the rules, navigated the situation with grace. No one knew what was going on. When the story started to come out, those who knew nothing commended me for my grace. They praised the way I’d handled the situation, telling me that I truly was walking without shame, with my head held high and the fullness of my integrity. They added that they’d never had a problem with me. And oddly, for a girl who would normally be loud to overcompensate for her discomfort, her awkwardness, or those lingering questions she usually has of herself and her abilities…I had a reputation for being quiet. A little too quiet, maybe, but we all know that wouldn’t have lasted long.
One of the coolest things maybe I have noticed is that I have not been alone. God has been beside me every step of the way, but there is something more, too. I mentioned that I am a young woman who feels like she has fought a lot of battles (admittedly, many probably needlessly). There have been many of those where I was fighting alone, pushing aside the voices of loved ones and friends trying desperately to calm that fighting feeling and tell me it wasn’t necessary. Standing alone because no one would stand behind me, no one was going to fight with me. In this, though, I am not alone. Friends, family, even from the most unexpected places – you have been standing not just behind me but beside me, and that has not gone unnoticed. I am…speechless, and it only reminds me once more how incredible His change in me has been.
God is doing tremendous things in my life. I have known that for a long time, and it has scared the Hell out of me. (I never understood why scaring the Hell out of someone was mentioned as a bad thing; shouldn’t we want the Hell scared out of us? I know the powers of Hell fear me now.) He has softened my heart and quieted my spirit, redefined my strength, blessed me beyond my wildest imagination. Now, I have listened and heeded that presence, His presence. I have embraced His peace. I have lived according to my heart instead of my fear. I have refused to question myself, to stop myself, to demand to fail. I have refused to hide even the pieces of the truth in which I don’t come off so well.
For the past couple of years, and more earnestly for the past several months, I have prayed for God to make me alright. Then prayed for Him to make me alright with being alright. He has answered.
I like this softness, this quietness, this peace, and this presence. I love what He has done in me, continues to do in me, and calls in me. It is beyond words to know this strength, to be this full, to have contentment, and respect and integrity and the millions of other little gifts included in this new heart. I am a woman truly changed, and I can’t wait to see what He is doing with me. In me.
In deepest praise...
I’m a young woman who has fought many battles, most probably unnecessary had I let anything but fear or pain control my heart. But at the time, I knew no other way to live. And so I fought. Life was battle after battle, why me story after why me, this continual sense of victimization and questioning whether I could ever be good enough. Then wondering why no one saw in me what I was seeing in myself, though even I knew it was masked beneath this exterior that had to fight to feel like it was living. There are people, I know, who could easily have looked at the events of the past two weeks and come to one of two conclusions: “This stuff always happens to her” or “She was looking for a way to fail.’
For much of my life, I had been one of those people. Feeling the victimization of this stuff “always” happening, of being targeted. As much as I got beat up in middle and high school, this would be a logical conclusion. Or that I always looked for a way to fail. This, too, was something I knew of myself. This fear of things going smoothly, this excess energy if I didn’t have to fight that sent me searching for a brawl, for something to break and go wrong. I’ll admit that I have held myself back too many times, stopped myself short, expected less of myself then mourned at not having the strength to push through.
Truly, God has changed the heart of His servant.
I don’t feel victimized, don’t feel like life is just a series of horrible, unbelievable events that will inevitably define me. His peace and presence overwhelmed my heart, and it was HIS voice, HIS Truth that echoed loudest. Knowing He had something better for me, that He would fill me to overflowing soon. He promised.
That something better is already here, and it’s beyond words. There is, of course, the change in my heart as I’ve already mentioned. It is knowing that I am not at fault, having no guilt, telling a story in full truth without hiding anything. Those concepts are new for me. I had always considered myself a truthful person, and that is to say that I’m not going to go out of my way to lie nor will I tell a story maliciously or out of spite. But in this story, I finally realized how I had protected my other truths. How I had always had some remnant of guilt – something that made me feel culpable or disgusting or less than worthy, something I always felt I had to hide to protect my image – that prevented me from just laying it out there. In this story, there is none of the above. I accept my role in things, and I know I have not been perfect, but I don’t feel the need to hide even the less-than-glowing parts of myself to protect anything.
I simply am as I am, as He has created me to be. And I am fully ok with that.
A few years ago, this would have been a story that I would have told forever, that I would have recounted and tried to show that I am good and the rest of the world is evil. I would have used it to garner attention or sympathy or support or whatever. I would have played it to the max because I would have felt like I didn’t have any other story to tell. That’s not the case today. In fact, I hardly consider this a story at all and from the first day, I was ready to let it pass. This…is not Truth. This is the world’s fiction, and I can’t let that define me. The pen of the dirty little ratfink who thinks he authors this world doesn’t change one bit of Truth that the Author of my life wrote. This is not my story.
And then there is my reaction and my part in all of this. It will come as no surprise to those of you who know me – and particularly to those who have been on the receiving end – that I can be vicious. I can be mean and spiteful, hateful and rude. Absolutely mean and relentlessly vicious. Even though I have known for a long time that my lion’s roar was more a kitten’s meow, that the beastly anger that burst forth from me in moments of trouble…was not truly a part of me. There was something deeper that should have overridden those outbursts, but I shoved it aside in favor of showing my strength.
Strength that was no strength at all; strength that merely was fear, that fight or flight when I neither wanted to brawl or fall. God has redefined in me over the past several months, slowly but surely, what it means to be strong. He has changed my understanding of strength to mean things I never would have imagined. He has made me strong in ways I never would have defined strength. And what I always considered strength…He has revealed as folly, as fear. Now, I have true strength, but no words to tell you what that is like.
In the past week, I had the opportunity again to be vicious. Perhaps if I had felt that same victimization, had those thoughts that would have made me hate the world or worse, myself, I would have lashed out. If His peace had not been there, if His voice had not been louder than the four berating me, if my heart had closed and refused to listen, if I had chosen the fight over the stillness…things could have gotten very ugly. Let’s be honest – that would have done no good. I could have yelled. Cussed. Put my feet down and stood my ground, refusing to go without an apology and demanding that I keep my job. I knew what they were doing was wrong; I knew they couldn’t get away with it. Yet…I chose something quieter, something more in tune with the truth of my heart. I did not give in to their message. I denied their conclusions. I stated unequivocally that they were wrong. I cried many tears. But that something quieter prevailed.
I played by the rules, navigated the situation with grace. No one knew what was going on. When the story started to come out, those who knew nothing commended me for my grace. They praised the way I’d handled the situation, telling me that I truly was walking without shame, with my head held high and the fullness of my integrity. They added that they’d never had a problem with me. And oddly, for a girl who would normally be loud to overcompensate for her discomfort, her awkwardness, or those lingering questions she usually has of herself and her abilities…I had a reputation for being quiet. A little too quiet, maybe, but we all know that wouldn’t have lasted long.
One of the coolest things maybe I have noticed is that I have not been alone. God has been beside me every step of the way, but there is something more, too. I mentioned that I am a young woman who feels like she has fought a lot of battles (admittedly, many probably needlessly). There have been many of those where I was fighting alone, pushing aside the voices of loved ones and friends trying desperately to calm that fighting feeling and tell me it wasn’t necessary. Standing alone because no one would stand behind me, no one was going to fight with me. In this, though, I am not alone. Friends, family, even from the most unexpected places – you have been standing not just behind me but beside me, and that has not gone unnoticed. I am…speechless, and it only reminds me once more how incredible His change in me has been.
God is doing tremendous things in my life. I have known that for a long time, and it has scared the Hell out of me. (I never understood why scaring the Hell out of someone was mentioned as a bad thing; shouldn’t we want the Hell scared out of us? I know the powers of Hell fear me now.) He has softened my heart and quieted my spirit, redefined my strength, blessed me beyond my wildest imagination. Now, I have listened and heeded that presence, His presence. I have embraced His peace. I have lived according to my heart instead of my fear. I have refused to question myself, to stop myself, to demand to fail. I have refused to hide even the pieces of the truth in which I don’t come off so well.
For the past couple of years, and more earnestly for the past several months, I have prayed for God to make me alright. Then prayed for Him to make me alright with being alright. He has answered.
I like this softness, this quietness, this peace, and this presence. I love what He has done in me, continues to do in me, and calls in me. It is beyond words to know this strength, to be this full, to have contentment, and respect and integrity and the millions of other little gifts included in this new heart. I am a woman truly changed, and I can’t wait to see what He is doing with me. In me.
In deepest praise...
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